Ursula von Rydingsvard

Her work is in response to the oppression of Jewish people in Germany in concentration camps. They include large wooden cedar sculptures that express the artist's need to a way to feel safe. Her work seems chaotic in the fact she has no pre-plan to her work and she states it is a good way to let her anger out. During season 4, episode ecology from PBS' show ART 21, she explains that her "sculptures are beaten up by life creating Chaos". She connects with the community between nature and people. From her childhood experiences, her drawings are even in response to those events due to the fact that she keeps them very private. In the video, she also explains how her sculptures seems like pockets to hide in and escape from the world. I like she explains in an interview between Art 21 interviewer about her influences of her work.

ART:21:	Do these early experiences affect your work in any way?
VON RYDINGSVARD:	If I were to point to something from the camps that one can see most directly in my work it is that we stayed in barracks—with raw wooden floors, walls, and ceilings. I have a feeling that that fed into my working with wood. And the first time I ever saw Poland—all of the villages, all the homes there, were made of wood. There were stacks of wood, doors, and troughs of wood. Wood was the building material. So it’s somewhere in my blood, and I’m dipping into that source. The way in which I manipulate the cedar is very important to me, but I have a feeling that I even learned from things that I never saw. Working with it and looking at it feels familiar. I actually visited the home where I was born and it is made out of wood at the top. The bottom is made out of those dark beams with white plaster in between the beams. There was a basement in which the animals and the beets and the potatoes were kept. That was wooden too.
ART:21:	Do your memories get absorbed into the work?
VON RYDINGSVARD:	I remember sitting on steps and having on something like a nightgown. This nightgown was made of a raw linen that was quite stiff, and it folded in ways that had almost mountainous landscapes to it—a kind of erect landscape that made all kinds of indentations and crevices, little hilltops and so on. And I just remember feeling it on my body, the harshness of it and at the same time the softness of the parts that were more worn down. And I remember the sun hitting those structures on my body. That’s a memory that has vagueness in it, but I’ve dipped into it a lot.